The costs of drinking

Press, 16 September 1976, Page 20

The costs of drinking

When prices are compared with those in many other parts of the world, alcohol is cheap in New Zealand. About 2 5 per cent of people’s incomes here is spent on alcohol: to buy the same quantity of drinks in some European countries would take more than 10 per cent of incomes. International studies have shown that the price of alcohol in relation to average incomes has a direct effect on the amount consumed: New Zealanders have tended to drink more as alcohol has become, cheaper in relation to incomes.

In the light ,of these figures, proposals to restrain what the Licensing Control Commission has called “ the dreadful drinking disposition of New Zealanders ” through higher prices have a good deal of attraction. Unfortunately. as recent price increases have shown, drinkers accept the higher prices after a brief decline in sales. An increase in price large enough to bring about a substantial and permanent reduction in drinking would be politically unacceptable. Even then, it would be least likely to deter those people who are alcoholics or who have drinking problems. Their lives, and the lives of those dependent on them, would only become more difficult as drinkers sought sufficient funds to maintain their consumption.

These considerations must tell against the proposals to reduce the harm and social costs of excessive drinking by making liquor much more expensive. Drinkers already pay substantial amounts of tax. Nor is drinking the only form of recreation which nro-

duces Expensive problems for the community to solve. If a special tax were levied to finance programmes designed to patch up the harm done by alcohol, why not an appropriate tax or levy to meet the harmful effects of rugby, or motor-cycling, or, indeed, over-eating?

Perhaps the most useful programmes are those designed to identify problem drinkers in the community and to encourage them to help themselves. The State Services Commission recently set out to locate and help public servants with problems arising from liquor. Some private firms, have similar programmes. In association with education campaigns designed to make known to people, especially younger people, what harm may be caused by excessive drinking, such programmes have a valuable place and need not be unduly costly. . The Government has said it accepts the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Sale of Liquor, which reported late in 1974, that an Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council be established to assist research and treatment of illnesses associated with alcohol. The commission proposed that the council be financed by a levy of 3 per cent on sales of alcohol from some licensed premises The Government has yet to make its intentions clear through legislation, but it may well decide that the council’s activities will be important enough to justify a modest levy spread over all liquor sales. This should be preferred to any notion that liquor can be priced out of the hands of drinkers.